Sometimes I think I'm not here, but then I see you
by Aunty Soshul
Summary: Gokudera’s the victim of a torture session and Yamamoto has the hots for him. 8059 sorta...
1. Chapter 1

Title: Sometimes I think I'm not here, but then I see you and I know I am

Disclaimer: Standard don't own shit.

Summary: Gokudera's the victim of a torture session and Yamamoto has the hots for him. 8059 sorta…

AN/Warnings: It's a very abrupt story and I have no plans on creating a sequel. I tried to write more past this point, but meeehhhh. And this is the first fic I've written that I've been semi-satisfied with for the past year. The title is a random sentence I happened to think of with no relation to the story. Better than untitled though, right? :/

His nose is swollen and bleeding. The blood almost looks like crimson paint, dripping down the face of some graffitied angel, following the curve of his lips like a dark sin. There is a sick twist deep in his gut and he's enjoying this bruised and bloody face far more than he should. The feeling repulses him and he does his best to suppress it. If there's anything that Yamamoto has left over from all this mess, it is scraps of humanity that find him at the most unexpected moments. The foreigner speaks again in those soft words strung together that should sound like music, but end up obscene. "Italian," he remembers Reborn telling him dismissively prior to the interrogation. He doesn't flinch when Ryohei hits the victim again, does his best to act like he didn't hear the sound of cracking bones in that pretty pretty face. Tsuna touches his hand reassuringly, with a smile like sunshine.

"It's okay if you want to sit it out Yamamoto," because he understands Yamamoto is the one with the weakest stomach for this sort of mafia business. Assassinations are fine, eliminating families are fine, as long as it's a mass-murder and not just a single kill. Tsuna finds it slightly ironic considering Yamamoto's preferred method of executions, but he knows it's just part of the way his oldest friend is wired and is probably the only way he knows how to stay sane. Sometimes it feels like Yamamoto is the only one who remembers why they entered this rough business in the first place and he loves him dearly for it. Tsuna turns back to the two-way mirror, listening to the smatterings of Italian and picking up various obscenities about his mother. Which was unfair; he's sure if the prisoner met his mother, he'd automatically adore her. Yamamoto nods, and leaves the room, but can still hear it when the humming starts.

It's an empty broken sound, Vivaldi in a whole new element, and when mixed with the sound of grinding flesh, Yamamoto has never been more inspired to go against the Family wishes and rescue that man. It's fleeting. If he can walk away now, he can act like this mutinous thought never existed.

He walks away.

Only to come back and find Hibari slinking out of the room, slightly covered in blood, with flushed cheeks, and looking every bit like a bird of prey that just caught its mouse. He knows this isn't authorized interrogation time and his stomach churns just thinking about it. He waits till Hibari is out of hearing range before he creeps into the room. He feels something like pity crawl into the tattered remains of his soul as he stares at the prisoner, far more broken than he had been the previous day. He's cuffed to the wall; body slumped as his wrists bleed. Yamamoto doesn't hesitate in releasing the man from his position, using a pick he always keeps on his person, and is surprised when the man swipes out at him with a broken shard of glass. The prisoner scratches his side, and with him injured and Yamamoto's reflexes sharpened and honed to perfection, he knows this is a very dangerous man. The fact that he's lived through a session with Hibari is enough to take into account. Dino's still recovering from his last fuck with the Cloud Guardian. He takes no time in disarming him efficiently and as painlessly as he can manage. The man on the floor grunts and Yamamoto moves over to the first aid kit that has become standardized in Vongola interrogation rooms after they lost Shouichi. There's a sharp growl and then those damn pretty green eyes turn to him, looking for all like a beaten cat. The pity explodes into something else and he hates, resents, despises, loathes, the twinge of arousal that spawns at the sight. The full blown attraction that hadn't been there swells up and he has always been weak for pretty, broken things fighting like life still matters. Those lips move to slur out more of that melodic language and he can see the lure the prisoner has offered Hibari. He patches him up as best he can, does his damn hardest to be gentle with the limp body and leaves him on the cot.

Reborn gives him a chilling look in the morning.

"Don't get attached."

Advice from a natural born assassin to another natural born assassin. Yamamoto acknowledges it, thinks of those pretty green eyes, and vows never to go back in to that room again. He values his life far more than patching up some prisoner that refuses to talk. He forces himself to forget and spends the rest of the day shopping/watching the girls as they explore stores later on in the afternoon.

He breaks that vow the next night when faced with another bout of insomnia. Bianci is walking to the interrogation room where the boy is and it's a full three hours before she leaves, hands a little bloody, but otherwise unperturbed. She doesn't acknowledge him and he doesn't try to attract her attention. Instead he focuses on that closed door and thinks of what Reborn told him not to do. He paces outside the room for five minutes before deciding that checking on a prisoner is a strategic move. Making sure he's still alive when there's valuable information to be had isn't getting attached. It's being logical. It's being logical. It's being logical. He tells himself this until he believes it.

The Italian sits on a bed, face almost disfigured and Yamamoto wishes they would ease up on him a little bit, thinks about approaching the conversation with Tsuna, before he dismisses it. He's surprised when the man's voice iterates in perfect Japanese, "Why the hell are you here?"

There's something dead in the Italian's eyes and Yamamoto looks away before his darker side is too tempted by the beauty of the cold.

"I thought you only spoke Italian."

The man scoffs harshly before he reclines into his bed. "If you want to fuck me, go ahead. Nothing can be worse than with that bastard. Otherwise, get out. This is the only bit of peace I get and I hate having it filled with traitors and Vongola scum."

Yamamoto wonders at the traitors, but obeys.

He talks to Tsuna after breakfast.

"I was wondering if…"

"Yamamoto, I know what you're going to say. And trust me, I don't like this anymore than you do, but you know I can't do anything until we can get something out of him-"

"He speaks Japanese."

Tsuna's eyebrow lifts, a sharp look entering his face as his brain starts connecting the dots that Yamamoto doesn't see, but instinctively knows the foreigner's mastery of the language is important.

"We had unconfirmed reports; Bianci said as much, but right now she's not really in the best position to be taking information from. This will make things a little easier and a little harder. Listen, Yamamoto, for whatever reason, he seems to warm up to you. If you can get more information, I'll lessen the interrogations."

He takes a leap of faith, thinks about those green eyes and bargains when he should keep his mouth shut. It should be enough that the torture sessions are ending, but it's not.

"Today. And I don't want Hibari back in that room again."

Tsuna frowns a little at the last sentence, eyes searching Yamamoto's face. "It's best if you don't-"

"Get attached. Reborn warned me. And I'm not Tsuna, this is just. It feels like I have to do this."

Vongola Decimo nods his head slightly, eyes still filled with doubt, but ever understanding of the needs of his family. And honestly hopes that Yamamoto isn't going to fall any deeper. He has seen what love does to families and he doesn't want to have to kill a man he considers his brother.

The man is sleeping when Yamamoto walks in for his nightly visit. His body is stretched out across the small cot, toes dangling off the edge. He doesn't try and wake him. Instead, he stands there and watches his rhythmic breathing, like the waves of an ocean his mother had loved so dearly. He thinks if circumstances had been different, he'd gladly fall asleep to the sound. But they're not and the more information he can get, the safer the prisoner will be. He gently pushes some silver strands of hair out of his face, before he moves his hand to his shoulder and shakes. The prisoner is on him in a second, Yamamoto sprawled out on the floor, surprised a little at the fast reflexes and watches as the sleep clears away from green eyes and awareness clouds them. A storm he thinks.

"I just want to talk."

The man looks down at him, in the perfect position to snap his neck if he could move. Pouncing had been pure reflex, a distrust conditioned into his body since he was a child.

"They didn't touch me today. Your doing?"

"Vongola Decimo's doing."

He snorts, a dark look arises in his eyes, and he rolls off like rain, settling himself on the floor and looking up at the ceiling.

"What's your name?"

He hesitates and the prisoner snorts at him. The man looks at him, looks into his eyes and then a sharp frown crosses his face and he glances over towards the sink. Yamamoto's mouth has run dry and he can't say anything, not that he has to.

"It's strange putting a person to a file. You're the sushi boy. I didn't agree with what he did to your father. Family shouldn't be collateral damage. If there's anything I learned from Shamal, it was that."

The mentioning of his father swells up something angry inside of him, and it's a fierce beast, monstrous enough to want to hurtkilldestroy the man next to him. It's something he's never been able to control. So when he moves to choke the man, his hands wrapped around that thin delicate neck, he is moving in for the kill. The windpipe constricts and tightens, he can feel the prisoner's heart rate accelerate; can taste the delicious flavor of death in the air. The man stares at him unblinkingly, as if it's a normal occurrence.

He chokes out, "I'm Gokudera."

And Yamamoto relaxes. And he realizes he's playing a dangerous game. A game that, for once in his life, he may not be able to win.


	2. Chapter 2

Yes I said it was finished, but when I write for this universe, I'm going to post it up here… These are really just all stand alones and I don't feel like posting up seventy different stories. .

-

Yamamoto walks in to find Bianci redoing damage to Gokudera's face. He watches, stunned, for all of a minute, each hit stirring a sort of possessive rage that simmers and boils over like Haru's hare-brained experiments in the lab. It's a new feeling, something that makes his mind go blank, except different in ways he doesn't know and then he's thrown Bianci across the room like he hasn't been scared shitless of her since she first arrived. She hits the floor like a rag doll, limp and with a wild, rabid look and barred teeth. For a moment he sees someone else, sees Gokudera in her features before he's tackled to the ground, a fist making contact with his face for the first time in years. The Japanese-Italian is on him like cesium on water, and staring at him is like staring at the hand of God, the angel of vengeance, and Yamamoto stops breathing. Wrath has never been so beautiful.

"Don't fucking touch her."

And Bianci's laughing in the corner, "Such a protective big brother."

-

Three hours afterward and Gokudera's staring at the ceiling, the sound of Winter haunting the cell. Yamamoto closes his eyes to it, has come to enjoy his humming, though nothing has been more beautiful than the first time he heard the haunting melody of death before rebirth. Bianci left earlier, eyes mocking Yamamoto, eyes understanding Yamamoto. He doesn't like the way she knew what he doesn't know yet, doesn't trust what he doesn't know and with proper reason (but he does trust this prisoner-turned-not-friend-because-he-is-not-attached-he-is-gathering-information). Winter stops, abruptly, and Gokudera's words stumble out, chalky, rough, and just as harmonious as music.

"She should have loved us. She should have loved me."

And so Yamamoto finds out the bloody history of the once powerful Gokudera family, sibling rivalry, and love. He learns that even though Bianci's with Ryohei, it was Reborn she sacrificed her family for and that, "Love is poison."

Listening to the hollow voice, he agrees, and wonders who is poisoning who, and thinks nothing of the implications of the thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Hibari bares his teeth at him when they meet oh so accidentally in front of Gokudera's room (when did it become that, Gokudera's room?).

"Fucking herbivore. Next time you won't cross my prey."

And that's fine because despite a brief and humiliating crush on Squalo Superbi, he has never been interested in Dino.

"As long as you know this one's mine now."

He wants to think he's saying this for Gokudera's sake but her remembers those cries of agony, broken music. Remembers that look of open pain and the way he can strangle him and get nothing but a placid, calm look that he wants to rip apart and there's something far more sinister boiling at the surface. Hibari sneers and smacks him with a tonfa, knocks him to his knees.

"Remember this. You won't always be around."

And Yamamoto snarls at that, taking Hibari by surprise and pushing him to the ground, a small dagger drawn up against his throat. They are two predators now, both fighting to piss on the same thing and there's this encompassing hate because Hibari did get to mark him when he could barely look at the man without seizing up with soft, stupid warm emotions that clash with the need to possess.

"Touch him again and that blonde bitch of yours will disappear."

Before it can escalate to a full blown fight, Reborn coughs, his face solemn.

"I did tell you Yamamoto."

And suddenly he feels ashamed of himself for fighting with family, but he doesn't regret it. And damn. He doesn't visit him tonight but that doesn't mean his dreams aren't painted with silver and green.


End file.
